Julius Kyungsoo Park

Julius Park is the founder of Crazy 88 Mixed Martial Arts, a Maryland academy he opened in 2005 by teaching Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to a handful of students. He had been coaching since 1999, when he ran the jiu-jitsu club at Cornell as a blue belt under Renzo Gracie, and he started the academy for a simple reason: he wanted to train more often, with more partners. Park earned his black belt from Lloyd Irvin in 2013. Twenty-one years on, the single room he started in has grown into three academies across the Baltimore and Annapolis corridor, in Elkridge, Owings Mills and Severna Park, staffed by full-time professional coaches teaching seven days a week. The academy is now teaching the children of students who joined in its first few years.